Feds: Pot smugglers on border territory sold more than $700 million

U.S. Drug Enforcement Admin.This is an aerial view of the home of Randy Square, an accused leader of a marijuana ring that sold more than $300 million worth of pot over the past 10 years, according to a federal grand jury indictment. The home is on the St. Regis Mohawk Indian Reservation in Hogansburg.

More than $30 million a year in marijuana sales bought a lot of bling for the leaders of a drug ring in Northern New York, according to federal prosecutors:

That's what prosecutors say federal agents found two months ago when they raided homes and businesses on the Akwesasne Indian Reservation.

The Drug Enforcement Administration has arrested 26 people since February, about half of them members of the St. Regis Mohawk Indian tribe, on charges of running a marijuana-trafficking ring that sold between $300 million and $700 million worth of pot over the past 10 years.

The ring sold more than 100,000 pounds, making it by far the biggest marijuana ring the DEA has ever busted in Upstate New York, according to Special Agent Erin Mulvey. The second largest that she was aware of was about half that.

The three leaders of the ring weren't shy about spending their money, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Tiscione.

One leader, Kenneth Cree, built a sprawling home on the reservation and installed surveillance cameras all over it, Tiscione said.

Cree built a tool shed that most people would call a garage, Tiscione said. In his garage, he kept a monster truck, Tiscione said.

"It was just one of his toys," Tiscione said.

The drug ring started around 1999, a couple of years after federal agents busted a major smuggling ring on Akwesasne. The reservation is prime real estate for smugglers of all kinds because it's the only Indian reservation that straddles the U.S.-Canada border. That gives drug smugglers from Canada easier access to the U.S., and vice-versa.

The marijuana was grown in Canada and transported by boat or snowmobile into the U.S. through the Akwesasne, according to a federal grand jury indictment. After a while, the movement of large amounts of marijuana became so pervasive on the reservation that it continued in plain view, according to an affidavit from a DEA agent.

One accused drug dealer, Andrew Kagan, told a DEA informant in a secretly wiretapped phone conversation that people made no effort to hide the drugs, according to the affidavit from DEA Special Agent Kevin Merkel.

"These guys are driving around with (expletive) black garbage bags sticking out the back of a pickup truck, 40 pounds in a bag," Kagan told the confidential informant.

David Staddon, a spokesman for St. Regis, said neither he nor anyone he's talked to have seen marijuana being moved around the reservation.

"Keep in mind the veracity of the person making those kinds of statements," Staddon said. Mohawks at Akwesasne have long been unfairly associated with big-time smugglers because of the reservation's cross-border location, he said.

"There's a lot of outside groups that come in and take advantage of it," Staddon said. "Just like any other community, 99.9 percent of the people here are law-abiding citizens."

The drugs ended up mostly in New York City, but some were sold in Syracuse and other Upstate cities, according to federal prosecutors. The case is being prosecuted in Brooklyn federal court. The defendants face charges of running a continuing criminal enterprise, importing marijuana and distributing marijuana. They face up to 20 years in prison. None of the defendants has been convicted.

Kagan, 32, of New Jersey, was in charge of making hidden compartments in vehicles and furniture to hide the drugs and cash, according to Merkel's affidavit.

Kagan told one of the leaders, Randy Square, that he could build him a fish tank that could hide $10 million in cash, the affidavit said.

Square responded in the wiretapped call that he would need two or three more fish tanks to hide all his cash, Merkel wrote. DEA agents found about $20,000 in Square's home on Akwesasne, Tiscione said.

Square, 44, said in an interview last week month that he was never part of the marijuana ring. He was implicated because he hangs out at a bar owned by David Sunday, another alleged leader of the ring, Square said.

"They got me as that guy's partner," Square said. "Me and him don't even get along."

The cash that investigators found in Square's home was from his wife's and son's landscaping business, he said. Square said that Kagan tried to sell him hidden compartments for his vehicles and furniture, but that he never bought any.

"False accusations they got," Square said. He was arrested in February and was released from jail after posting a $2.5 million bond secured by 10 properties of friends and family. Square could not use his own home to secure the bond because the federal government cannot seize homes on Indian reservations, Tiscione said.

The drug ring sold hydroponic marijuana, which is grown in water instead of soil and sells at a higher profit, Mulvey said. The dealers compressed the marijuana and vacuum-sealed it to fit odd containers, Tiscione said.

Some storage compartments were thin and long so they could go under the length of the bed of a pickup truck, Tiscione said.

The storage could only be opened by pushing the correct combination of innocuous-looking buttons in the cab, he said.